Out of the Rabbit Hole

By Kathy Wilson

Out of the Rabbit Hole†is a memoir, written from a child's†point of view, of a little girl who manages to survive an environment of alcoholism and violence. She finds escape in the world of movies and records.†Starting at age three, being left alone becomes the norm; by four, the movie theater becomes her babysitter. As she grows, so do her views and observations that enable her to climb†Out of the Rabbit Hole†into the†real world with insight and solidity.


In†Out of the Rabbit Hole,

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 18, 2015
• ISBN: 9781633380363

Kathy Wilson

Kathy Wilson worked as a marketing executive in Sydney and now has her own consulting firm in Brisbane, where she lives with her husband and son. She cowrote From Here to Maternity: A Novel of Total Exhaustion with her sister, Kris Webb.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Kathy with a K

From the moment my mother became pregnant with me, she and my father were locked into an angry, bitter war.

Perhaps the combination of my mother, Eva Tomalavage, a former actress, second generation Lithuanian and Russian, and my father, Joseph Persico, a dance hall and restaurant owner, second generation Italian, contributed to my becoming absorbed in the world of music, movies, and theatre. Without that world to escape into, I can say most definitely I would not have survived my mother and father.

Even my name caused controversy. My mother was enchanted with the operetta The Student Prince and was determined to name me Kathy, after the heroine. In the Italian culture, out of respect, I should be named after my paternal grandmother. Miraculously, my grandmother’s name was Catherine with a C. For once a battle was averted and I became Katherine with a K, but have always been called Kathy. I don’t know for whom my half brother Ronald was named, probably a movie star, or perhaps for his father, a man neither he nor I ever met. He was my mother’s son and was six years old when she married my father. Since he often stayed with my aunts or my grandmother, I was often the only child in the house.

One of my earliest recollections is that of the big brown box in our living room called the radio. Actually, we referred to the living room, where our radio was the focus, as the parlor. Gathering around that beloved brown box is the only memory I have of my immediate family doing something together. My mother and brother Ronnie listened to what it said—funny things that made them laugh, like Fibber McGee and Molly, and scary things that made them upset. On December 7, 1941, it told us that Pearl Harbor was bombed; I imagined all the pretty pearls black and ruined. Ronnie and I started to play hide and seek at night when we heard the loud wailing of the air raid drill sirens. We’d shut off all the lights and stay in the parlor so the Japanese could not bomb us. With only the tiny light from my dollhouse, we would wait for the all clear signal. At the sound of the sirens, our dog Mugsy would bark and howl. Mugsy was a spitz and terrier mix weighing about thirty-five pounds. Predominantly black, he had a brown strip across one eye and a tail curled like a pretzel. He was from Tiny’s litter, my father’s dog that always lived at the bar. I have a picture of my father with his brother, my Uncle Tony, holding Tiny.

Our apartment was in the Bronx on Mosholu Parkway, with the bedroom windows facing the park. The parlor was the middle of three rooms, with windows level with the elevated train tracks on Jerome Avenue. The trains passed frequently, drowning out our voices. From the kitchen window over the rooftops, you could see the garden in the back of my father’s bar and grill. It was called the Venetian. The neighborhood was a really nice mix of predominantly middle class Jewish and Catholic families of mostly German, Irish and Italian descent.

From the radio we could hear our favorite singers. Mine was Frank Sinatra, Ronnie’s was Bing Crosby, and my mother loved the Ink Spots. Ronnie and I would have heated arguments; he would insist that Bing Crosby was better. It seemed so very important to me that he agree that Frank Sinatra was the best. We would keep debating who was better.

Bing Crosby is the best.

No, Frank Sinatra is the best.

No, he isn’t.

Yes, he is.

We would do this over and over until I would scream and cry; then he’d call me a crybaby and sometimes whack me with a newspaper.

As early as I can remember, I sang along with Frank Sinatra. I knew all the lyrics to his songs. My mother would also play his records for me on our Victrola. I can see myself in the parlor singing along with Sinatra to Nancy with the Laughing Face, passionately involved in the lyrics with the radio at top volume. A cacophony of sounds accompanied us—the elevated train passing near our apartment window, the loud angry voices of my mother and father coming from the bedroom, and Mugsy frantically barking at the thuds from behind the closed bedroom door.

I’d also sing along when I visited my father’s bar and grill, spending hours putting nickels in the jukebox, singing Sinatra’s words of love and pain. My father kept a little red velvet box behind the bar. He called it a magic box because whenever I came back to get more nickels, he’d hand me the box and it would once more be filled with nickels. I would clap my hands with joy, the customers applauded, and my father would stand there smiling. Sometimes he even smiled at my mother. I don’t ever remember him smiling at home. I hardly remember him at home at all, except for sleeping or fighting. The most enduring picture I have of him is slumped over black coffee at our kitchen table in a thin-strapped tee shirt, his bloodshot eyes staring straight ahead. I never spoke to him during those times.

At the Venetian he was always cheerful. It felt good being there because it was one of the few times my parents were in the same place without arguing. As you entered, my father would usually be standing behind the long oak bar on the left. Across from it, right in the middle of the opposite wall, was the jukebox. In the rear were eight booths, four on each side, with red and white checkered tablecloths. Empty Chianti wine bottles stuffed with candles served as centerpieces. In the summer, the back door opened into the small wine garden that we saw from our kitchen window. At the Venetian I could hear Frank Sinatra any time I wanted just by inserting a nickel and pressing the right button. When a record was playing, I was mesmerized by the glow of the changing colors the jukebox produced—reds, blues, and yellows fading from one to the next creating new colors as they overlapped. I remember eating Pasta e Fagioli after watching my father cook the beans with the ditalini macaroni in the bar’s tiny kitchen. This dish always reminds me of him. I spent many hours of my childhood at the Venetian, while my mother drank her beers and my father charmed his customers, tended bar, cooked, and served food and drinks.

My mother was very beautiful; she could have been one of the movie stars in the MGM musicals I saw at the Tuxedo Movie Theatre. She had an oval face with high cheekbones and shiny brown hair turned under just below her neckline in the style of the Forties. Her soft flowered dresses complemented her statuesque figure. She seemed to know everyone in the bar and laughed a lot while there. The more she laughed, the less my father did; the more she drank, the more she laughed. Just when we would be having a really good time my father would tell her, It’s time you took your daughter home and put her to bed.

She never answered. She’d just finish her beer, take me by the hand and leave, barely nodding goodbye to anyone. I’d wave to those who waved to me. Sometimes she’d take me to another bar called the Golf. It was one block up on the corner of Jerome Avenue and Gunhill Road; it was our secret that we were going to the Golf. Daddy will be very angry at us if he knows. (I never told. I knew he would hit her.) I would also play the jukebox at the Golf; however, I did not have the endless nickels from the magic box so my playing was limited. Sometimes my mother’s friends (they were all men except for my mother’s drinking buddy, Kathleen) would give me as much as a quarter. I also knew I should never mention being with Kathleen to my father. If I catch you with that tramp Kathleen, I’ll give the both of you black eyes, I remember him shouting to my mother. The Golf had a separate back dining room where I, when hungry, would be served a small seventy-five cent pizza; I ate many pizzas there. In the Forties there wasn’t anywhere you could buy just a slice except maybe at Coney Island. The Golf was also where my mother went many nights when she left me alone in the apartment after putting me to bed.

I would wake up and listen for sounds in the frightening darkness. Nothing, nothing, but the trees blowing in the park across the street and occasionally the sound of a passing car. It was the reflection of the trees in the mirror that created giant moving shadows on the walls. I’d reach for my beloved black and white stuffed panda bear, Poochie, and clutch him close to my chest.

Mommy? No answer. Mommy?

I told Poochie not to be afraid. I would protect him from the shadow monsters. I was three years old when these nights of being left alone began. Some nights the sound of the air raid sirens would awaken me. I’d reach for Poochie and assure him I would save him from the Japanese if they broke into our apartment, took us prisoners and tortured us by dripping water on our heads until our heads exploded. Sometimes I got up and checked all the rooms, my heart pounding against Poochie for fear of being pounced upon at any moment. When I found no one, I’d run back to bed and once again reassure Poochie that we were safe. Other nights I was just too terrified to move at all. I would not let Poochie know how afraid I was, afraid of the shadow monsters, afraid of the Japanese, afraid my mother might never return.

I would talk to Poochie waiting for him to answer. I knew he could answer if he wanted to, because my mother told me that the candy and gum I found on the coffee table each morning were bought by Poochie in the middle of the night when I was sleeping. When she first told me this, I was so excited.

Mommy, when will Poochie walk and talk for me?

She hugged me and said, When you are a good girl.

Well, I thought I was a good girl but I would try to be better. During the nights when I would lie awake, I pleaded with Poochie to talk to me. I told him how good I was, how good I would be. I told him how much I loved him…but he did not respond. I tried pretending I was asleep so I could catch him getting up to go shopping. I’d wait and wait until sleep finally conquered me.

In the morning, I would wake up with Poochie still next to me. I’d peek to see whether Mommy was home safe, sleeping and recovering from her night at the bars. She always was. I’d then run into the parlor to see if the goodies were on the coffee table. They always were. I’d hug Poochie and thank him for all the treats. This caused very mixed feelings. I was thankful for the candy but angry that he had left me alone at night. I was so angry that one morning while my mother was still asleep, I locked us in the bathroom, filled the sink with water and through gritted teeth demanded that Poochie speak to me. I didn’t drown him; instead I asked for his forgiveness and told him how much I loved him. Now I’d shown him how bad I was and felt he’d never walk or talk for me. But I guess he still loved me because he continued to bring me goodies for several years to come.

One night, when my mother had only run out to get cigarettes, she left the light on in the parlor. I woke to the air raid sirens screeching and the air raid wardens banging on our door to have us put out the lights. I grabbed Poochie and hid behind the couch, thinking for sure the Japanese had come to get me. Mugsy, who would otherwise be curled asleep on my bed, barked and finally scared them away. As soon as the all clear sounded, my mother came home. I remember her always telling the story and quoting me as saying, Mommy, I hid behind the couch and did NOT let the Japanese in. For years, whenever she would tell this story, I would cringe as the listener would laugh and say how cute I was.

I especially remember waking up on summer nights in my junior bed at the foot of my mother and father’s. I must have been at least four. With the light from the street, I could see their empty bed reflected in the large round mirror of my mother’s dressing table positioned cater-corner in the room. The dreaded silver-plated spanking brush waited there. During the day this same big mirror would reflect my image for hours on end as I changed from pretending to be Dorothy Lamour in a makeshift sarong to Deanna Durbin, Judy Garland or Betty Grable. These movie stars were my babysitters and I knew them well, as I was often deposited at the Tuxedo Movie Theatre where my mother would periodically check in on me; the Golf bar was only a few doors away. I would watch these films over and over; I even got to know all the songs. I’d sing and dance with my leading men like Dan Dailey, Van Johnson, or, of course, Frank Sinatra. I’d pretend we would kiss, fall in love, get married, then sing and dance about how happy we were, and when we’d push buttons, beds would come out of the walls. Sometimes I would try to hold Mugsy up by his two front paws and dance with him. He would tolerate this for a short time then pull away.

On summer nights, I’d often stand on a chair and carefully climb out onto our second floor fire escape from the bedroom window that overlooked Mosholu Park. The section outside our window, although somewhat precarious, was on the opposite side of the fire escape ladder and was enclosed, so I felt safe. Sitting there with Poochie, I’d watch for my mother to turn the corner and come back home. Our building was just a few doors in from Jerome Avenue. These waiting sagas occurred frequently and went on from the time I was four until I was six years old. Sometimes for hours, I would picture my mother leaving the Golf bar two blocks north on Jerome Avenue, swaying as she headed home, then turning the corner onto Mosholu Parkway where she would come into view. I’d carefully imagine her passing by all the familiar places along the way, like the Tuxedo Movie Theatre, Woolworth’s Five-and-Ten Cent Store, Schweller’s Delicatessen, and the chocolate store which was right next to my father’s bar and was about the halfway mark. I’d visualize her waiting at each corner for the lights to change green and even have her stop to light up a Pall Mall cigarette.

When the time came for her to turn the corner of our block and she didn’t, I would start imagining her homecoming all over again from the Golf bar, past the landmarks, but walking more slowly each time. I don’t recall ever seeing her actually turn the corner during this waiting game. I wasn’t afraid of being alone on the fire escape; it was better than being in the apartment with the shadow monsters. Interestingly, no one ever noticed me up at my look-out station. My memory is that the park was quite picturesque. From my perch, I looked over hundreds of trees that sloped downhill to meet the Grand Concourse. On clear nights the moon and stars would add to the glow of the streetlamps. However, I can still feel the intense loneliness and longing for my mother’s return. I don’t think I ever told my mother about these nights of waiting. Until this day when I am waiting for someone who is late, I get an ache in the pit of my stomach; the more meaningful the someone, the greater the pain. I always arrive early—too early.

Chapter 2

You Mustn’t Hate My Mother

Somehow, as long as I can remember, I knew my mother’s story. She told it to me over and over in bits and pieces during her drunken monologues, or perhaps I absorbed some of it overhearing both sides of the family talk about her; the Lithuanians were much less sensitive to what a child should hear than the Italians.

My great grandparents, Eva and Pete Bononis, and their two daughters, Mary, age thirteen, and Elizabeth, age ten, arrived in America from Vilnius, Lithuania in the early 1900’s. They settled in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, where my great grandfather Pete found work as a coal miner. I am not sure of the exact year. Their daughter Mary, my grandmother, was married at fourteen to a coal miner named John Tomalavage. He was in his late twenties and had also come from Lithuania but was half Russian on his father’s side. My grandmother Mary had a total of fourteen children by three different husbands, and had a baby or a miscarriage almost every year. Of the fourteen, my mother and three aunts were the only ones who survived to adulthood. Most of the others were stillborn or died as babies or as very young children from common colds, fevers, and influenza. I only remember two that were ever talked about: While swimming in a river with his friends, Eddie drowned at nine when pulled away by the current, and Agnes died of consumption at nineteen. Years later, I would lie awake at night looking at Agnes among all the other sepia photographs of family members hanging on my grandmother’s bedroom wall. The pictures took on a ghostly appearance seen through the flickering of the vigil light candles adorning the makeshift altars my grandmother dedicated to Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Saint Anthony, Saint Teresa and Saint Agnes. In front of each of the two dressers on which the altars rested, there was a little padded stool to kneel on while praying.

My mother was born in Minersville, Pennsylvania, on November 15, 1911. She was named Eva after her grandmother, whom I would come to fear and dislike. My mother’s two older sisters were Helen, born in 1907, and Mae, born in 1909. Their father, John Tomalavage, was burned to death in a coal mine when my mother was four.

My grandmother went on to marry two more coal miners, both named John. None of the children from her second marriage to John Luksis survived; this John was killed in a mine collapse. My Aunt Jean, the fourth of Mary’s surviving children, was born of the third marriage to John Gallagher. I am not sure when Jean’s father died; he fell down the cellar steps and broke his neck. He must have lived long enough for her to become really attached to him, because when planning her own funeral seven decades later, Aunt Jean wanted to be buried in Minersville near his grave.

I remember hearing my aunts and mother, while sitting around the kitchen table drinking pitcher after pitcher of beer, laughing about my grandmother having three Johns and always shopping for a new John on the way back from the funerals. My understanding was that each time my grandmother found a new husband, the existing children were put out of the house if they were old enough. At eleven, my Aunt Helen was considered old enough to work and was sent to Newark, New Jersey, to board with my grandmother’s sister, Elizabeth. Helen started working in a factory skinning rabbits. My mother, then age seven, and Aunt Mae, age nine, were left behind with the ill-fated younger children, including Agnes and Eddie. Being the oldest in the house, it was my Aunt Mae who had to take care of all the younger siblings. My grandmother always gave her attention to her new husband and new children.

Coal miners did not make much money, and with all those children, what they did make didn’t stretch very far. My grandmother would bake many loaves of bread, sometimes with borrowed flour, or pies with fruit from the local blueberry bushes or apple trees, and give one to each family member. That was their only food allotment for that day and sometimes the next. They could choose to eat it all at once or divide it up to last longer. In the winter, the children hunted for coal that fell from the freight cars onto the railroad tracks, or their father brought coal home in his pockets. It was all they had to heat the house. Their dresses were sometimes made from flour sacks.

Once when the local priest came to take up his Easter collection from the parishioners, my grandmother was so embarrassed at being poor that she borrowed a dollar from a neighbor. A dollar was a lot of money in those days! At the time her husband was in the hospital with third degree burns, but she did not want the priest to think her an uncaring Catholic. In Newark, my Aunt Helen was earning fifty cents a week working in the factory. Twenty cents went to her Aunt Elizabeth for weekly board, ten cents for her food, and another ten for her clothes, but somehow she managed to put the remaining ten cents into savings. A few years later, those savings actually bought her a share of a beauty parlor.

When she was twelve, my Aunt Mae left Pennsylvania and joined her sister Helen in Newark, taking my mother, who was only ten, with her. Mae was more like a mother to her than my grandmother had been. Left to her own devices at such a young age, Mae resorted to using manipulation to control her younger siblings. She would tease and ridicule them until they cried. Then she’d hug and kiss them as a consolation. Because I, too, experienced Aunt Mae’s tactics when I was a little girl, years later I kept her well away from my own daughter.

After her last husband—John number three—died from the fall on the cellar stairs, my grandmother also moved to Newark, taking Jean and Agnes with her. At that time, Helen, Mae, my mother Eva, Jean and Agnes were the only surviving offspring. They also paid board to live with my grandmother’s sister Elizabeth. This was in the Ironbound section of Newark, also referred to as "Down Neck,’’ which was and still is a nice area. Even with three in a bed and two beds in one room, they felt their standard of living had improved. My great grandmother and grandfather were also living nearby. Having survived the mines, my great grandfather Pete was working two shifts in a factory, saving all the money he could. His dream was to go back to visit Lithuania before he died.

The physical contrast between my grandmother Mary and her sister Elizabeth was remarkable. My grandmother looked exactly the same from as early as I can remember until the day she died, when I was twenty-seven. Even in the pictures of her as a young woman, she looked the same as I had always known her. She was about five feet two inches, with straw-like blond hair, parted in the middle, cut straight just below her ears and fastened by two blond bobby pins to keep it away from her face. With her pock- marked face and bulbous nose, I always thought she looked like a cross between George Washington and W.C. Fields. She was quite heavy and wore old lady print housedresses with buttons down the front adorned with pop pearls. In fact, because of her weight, many of her children were not always aware she was pregnant. After a night of commotion—screams and neighbors running in and out of their cramped house—a new baby would appear in my grandmother’s arms the next morning. While nursing, the infant would sleep with my grandmother and then be shifted to share a bed with several others. While living in Minersville, the family only spoke Lithuanian. My grandmother learned only a few words of English from her children, who were taught English at school.

My grandmother’s sister Elizabeth, on the other hand, was only five feet tall with a petite figure. She had style in a Norman Rockwell sort of way, wore small glasses and kept her dark brown hair in a neat bun at the nape of her neck. Elizabeth married a Navy man, moved to West Virginia and they had three sons. It was always rumored by the family that a lover was the father of one of her sons. After her husband died, I don’t know how or exactly when, she moved to Newark. Certainly she had a better life than my grandmother, spoke English well, and actually had acquired a charming West Virginian accent. She dropped the g from words like darlin’ and often said y’all stretched out like the beginning of a yodel. All three of her sons went through high school and later joined the Navy.

My mother was Elizabeth’s favorite niece. With her Russian heritage dominant, little Eva had an oval face, high cheekbones, a long neck, and glossy dark brown hair, giving her a very classic look. She looked very much like Natalie Wood both as a child and as an adult. In my scrapbook, I saved pictures of Natalie Wood; you would swear they were photographs of my mother at about nineteen. My mother’s eyes were brown and soulful. In contrast, her sisters were blond and blue eyed, very Slavic looking. Next in line for looks were Aunt Helen, then Aunt Jean and last Aunt Mae. My favorite was my Aunt Helen who was like a second mother to me. She had the kindest deep blue eyes, was soft-spoken, even tempered and very pragmatic. Mae had sharp features, bleached blond coiffed hair and always wore blue eye shadow. Her beak nose made her look like a witch when she got angry. She always commented about herself, I may not be the prettiest, but you have to admit I certainly am the most attractive. I was caught under Aunt Mae’s possessive wing for many years. Jean was the youngest, simple and modern in dress, her blond hair always very contemporary. They were all slender; fortunately, none of them inherited my grandmother’s physique.

My mother Eva was a bright, gentle child. She wrote poetry, kept journals, and loved to read novels and plays. Some of her artistic tendencies probably came from her grandfather. Before he and my great grandmother moved to Newark, she had been very close to him. In Minersville, he told her stories as they went for long walks together; he also read her poems and sang to her. I remember her telling me that the poetry he wrote in Lithuanian made the language seem lyrical. Lithuanian is not a lyrical language; I always thought the sound of it was very harsh. She used the word flowery to describe the way her grandfather wrote and spoke. Their close relationship probably began during the time my Aunt Helen had moved away to Newark and my Aunt Mae was busy taking care of the younger children. When he moved to Newark, little Eva was devastated. She was thrilled when she later moved there and could be close to him once more. With working two shifts, he could not spend much time with her but did manage to help her with schoolwork, and she helped him to learn English. Her schooling through eighth grade far exceeded the education of Helen and Mae, who both only finished grade two. The only sister to graduate from high school was my Aunt Jean.

While Helen and Mae worked in the factory, my mother accompanied her Aunt Elizabeth wherever she went, to the library or shopping for clothes or food. They often went to the movies together. When I think about it, to Elizabeth, then a widow with three grown sons, my mother must have been like the daughter she never had. Eva learned to cook, sew and keep house well, and also learned to smoke. She and my Aunt Elizabeth were the only two who ever smoked in the family, until my mother introduced me to smoking at age fourteen. I was sitting on the rocking chair near the parlor window when my mother came into the room and offered me one of her Pall Malls. The first drag hurt my throat and caused me to choke. We both laughed—but I was flattered that my mother saw me as her peer. That day started twenty plus years of my smoking, which I stopped during my pregnancy, then again for my daughter’s sake when she was four.

When my mother was almost thirteen and entering eighth grade, her grandfather planned to make his long awaited visit to Lithuania. Working the two shifts for about five years had taken its toll. He felt he had to go while his health endured and bring his only sister Libby back to America with him. During their correspondence over the years, he was aware his sister had never married in order to care for their mother and father through long illnesses that eventually caused their deaths. His attempts to send money were futile; apparently, it was intercepted and stolen. He thought his savings were now sufficient for his round trip on the ship, his sister’s passage, and the under-the-table fees he would need to bribe the authorities to allow her to leave the county. Without payoffs, no passports were issued. It was also very important that he be back when his sweet grandchild Eva graduated from the eighth grade. I would never miss such a momentous occasion, he told them all.

Everyone in the family was excited about his trip, knowing not only that he would have many stories to tell, but also that they would finally meet Libby, whose letters had arrived for years. They all went to the port in New York City to see the ship off. These were treacherous times to travel in steerage class; there was a lot of thievery on the ships as well as in Lithuania. Coming from America, you were a good prey.

In his wallet he would carry very little, another smaller amount was in a purse pinned to the inside of his underwear. For safety my great grandmother sewed his entire savings into the lining of his overcoat to be unstitched when he finally arrived in Lithuania.

After about twenty-four days of traveling on rough seas with most of the passengers seasick, then on trains, and finally by horse and carriage, he arrived at his sister Libby’s. When he opened the lining of his coat he discovered that his wife had substituted cut newspaper instead of money! He was devastated. She had kept all of his savings. He would not be able to return to America. He wrote and wrote and begged her to send money for his return; his letters went unanswered. I don’t know exactly when or of what, but he died in Lithuania.

He died of a broken heart, my mother would tell me through her tears. My mother’s heart was also broken; she hated her grandmother for what she had done, and disliked her own mother for accepting it. Although she asked them both, no explanation was ever given to her for the cruel behavior of her grandmother. Because I had heard this story, I always hated my great grandmother. Aunt Mae often took me along to visit her. I dreaded those visits in her dark apartment and later in a nursing home. My recollection of her is a stern, wrinkled old lady with big bunions on her feet.

My mother lived at home long enough to graduate from the eighth grade; it was her tribute to her grandfather. Then she took a job as a live-in cook and housekeeper for a family in an affluent community in North Newark. She would be fourteen that coming November.

By this time, my Aunt Helen had a share in the beauty parlor in downtown Newark that she called the Greenwich. All four sisters now spoke English and worked there in some capacity. Until the shop built a client base, they ate peanut butter and Ritz crackers for lunch every day for months. Both of Aunt Helen’s partners were of Russian ethnicity and both were named Eva. With my mother also working at the Greenwich part-time on weekends, there were now three Eva’s. Aunt Helen would later marry Bill, the man she was dating, an American of Scottish descent. The shop became so successful that she was able to pay for Bill to go through law school.

One day when my mother was sixteen, she left both jobs without telling anyone and just disappeared. Everyone was frantic. My Aunt Mae could not sleep or eat for weeks. They all searched for her and even reported her missing to the police. The only reason they didn’t think she was kidnapped or murdered was because she had packed and taken all her belongings with her.

Finally, after two months, she came to visit on a Sunday. Eva Tomalavage had renamed herself. I am now Sonia Thomas, she declared. She was dancing in New York City at a Second Avenue Burlesque Theatre on the Lower East Side. In those days burlesque was made up of mostly vaudeville skits, with a few dancing girls. Her family thought of it as shocking and it made them relate to her as a wayward woman. Aunt Elizabeth pleaded with her to come back home, go to high school and become an English teacher. Mae, who could be mean, very sharp tongued, and domineering, told her if she didn’t quit and come back home that she would never be welcome again.

Before Sonia Thomas returned to her dancing job, she announced to them all, I am going to be an actress.

Chapter 3

The Actress

I regret that I am unable to fill in all the details about my mother between the burlesque engagement and when my brother was conceived. Her four years in New York City, during which time she worked as a waitress and then as a live-in domestic helper while studying acting, are rather sketchy. At first she shared small apartments on the Upper West Side with two or three young women. Reminiscing about the city, she’d tell me about taking a light blanket and walking to Central Park to escape the intensity of the midsummer night’s heat, sleeping on the grass when New York City was still safe. These were the stories my sober mother would tell as we sat in our parlor in the Bronx. She on the couch, me on her lap, I would put my head on her shoulder and share her reverie; these blissful moments were few but treasured memories. I would picture her happy, see her then as I wanted her to be now and always. She would speak fondly of her acting years, telling me she would walk from the Upper West Side to her classes and rehearsals which were in midtown.

At some point she began working as a live-in housekeeper and cook for a prominent family who owned and occupied an entire brownstone in the West 70’s just off of Central Park West. The most wonderful part for her was having a lovely room to herself on the fourth and top floor with the privacy to study, write and dream of her future. She was peaceful, far from the coal mines. Being off every evening after the dinner dishes were washed and put away, and all day Sunday, the job allowed her time for acting classes and rehearsals. Life was sweet, and the future promised success and happiness.

The family she worked for consisted of a husband and wife in their early sixties and their only son whom I shall call James since I never knew his name. The entrance of the brownstone opened into a large foyer. To the left, in the main room, a